Short for Regional Broadband Global Area Network, the RBGAN network provides e-mail and satellite internet access direct to portable terminals. The terminal is roughly the size of a laptop computer, and is connected to a standard PC using the plug and play features of the modem itself (USB, Ethernet, or Bluetooth). RBGAN service is based on Internet Protocol (IP) and Packet-Data technologies. Subscribers are usually charged by the amount of data one transfers (per-Mbyte) rather than per minute service, where the charge is based on the amount of data sent and received, not the total time spent online.